"SI" 2000-2009 Death

SIEGRIST d@ca.on.grey_county.owen_sound.the_sun_times 2004-12-29 published
Gavin's story
By Scott DUNN,
Wednesday,December 29, 2004
Gavin SIEGRIST died a junkie's death in someone's bathroom in
the middle of the night on Owen Sound's west side.
The 21-year-old had been dealing drugs, running up huge debts
and scrambling to get them paid.
He was beaten up a week before he died.
There are some dangerous people involved in Owen Sound's drug
scene. They beat people up and have guns, Gavin's dad, Rick
SIEGRIST, says.
Gavin's parents learned of threats they themselves faced because
of Gavin's “friends.&rdquo
About 4 a.m. on October 1, Gavin was discovered on the toilet
in Mike COX's bathroom, either dead or near death.
COX and Justin
BEASLEY moved Gavin out when
COX's mother needed
to get in. Gavin was a guest that night. He'd stayed there before.
BEASLEY believed Gavin had a pulse, said
COX, who doubted it
because Gavin was “cold as stone and he wasn't moving.&rdquo
COX called Gavin's parents almost an hour after finding him.
Gavin's mother recalls them saying something was wrong with her son.
She suggested shaking him and asked sarcastically “Is he dead?&rdquo
COX wasn't sure. She told him to call 911.
Paramedics worked on Gavin, but it was too late.
COX overheard
one of them estimate the time of death at midnight, but Gavin's
mother has spoken to someone Gavin phoned at about 1: 30 a.m.
COX had kicked Gavin out about 10 p.m. when Gavin produced a syringe.
“What the... do you think you're doing with that? You think you're
going to poke right here”?
COX said he told Gavin.
“Well I guess not,” Gavin replied before leaving.
But COX allowed Gavin back into his house about 10: 30 p.m. because
Gavin pleaded no one else would let him in that time of night.
BEASLEY, who was with Gavin, surfed the Net while
COX says he slept.
COX said he had a faint suspicion something bad would happen
that night, but he said he was being responsible by going to
bed early to be ready for work the next morning.
“Something was wrong around that time of night. We didn't know,
but I had to go to sleep and finish my responsibilities, wake
up and go to work again.&rdquo
According to the coroner, there was cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines
and barbiturates in Gavin's system when he died.
One doctor said he died sitting up, another said he died lying down.
Gavin's body was moved, which could explain the conflicting findings.
The toxicology report is due soon.
“The eye-witness accounts say that he was poking (injecting)
cocaine,” said Gavin's mother, Jenniffer
SIEGRIST.
COX said Gavin had a lot on his mind.
“He got into selling and dealing. He owed a lot of people money
and then he didn't owe people money, so he was always doing something.&rdquo
He and Gavin smoked marijuana but the needles surprised him,
said COX.
“He never let on, Okay? He never let on. He knew what he was
doing.&rdquo
OwenSound police Det.-Const. Peter
DANIELS said people who were
at COX's home saw Gavin inject himself with cocaine several times.
He wouldn't be specific about who the witnesses: are, citing privacy laws.
DANIELS' investigation never did pinpoint exactly how much time
passed before someone called for help. “Let's just say there's
no indication of a significant delay.&rdquo
People in the house told him they called for help immediately.
There was no evidence of drugs in the house but Gavin's backpack
did contain a kit with syringes, a “cooking” spoon and water.
It's not clear when Gavin started shooting up, but his Friends
think it was no more than a couple of months before he died.
His abuse of street or prescription drugs or both could have
gone back years.
Jessica CORDY, 17, was Gavin's girlfriend for almost two years
-- until December, 2003, nine months before his death.
She insists his drug use, aside from marijuana, began after they broke up.
In May or June he told her he knew how to get morphine and that
he was dealing it. He didn't say he had a prescription for it,
which she has since learned he did. In mid-July he talked about
dealing OxyContin, but showed no signs of using it.
When she learned he had ecstasy around the end of July, she said
she told him off.
“What are you getting into this pill crap. You're not doing them,
are you?” she recalled saying.
He said he was just selling.
She said she never saw him take any for himself.
Gavin lost a job at a gas bar at the end of August and “that's
when he started to do the chemicals and everything,”
CORDY said.
Two days before he died she confronted him, asking what he was
shooting up. He'd admitted trying heroin, morphine and
OxyContin,
which he told her was synthetic heroin. “He said he couldn't
go without it and that was only two days before he died.
“It just really doesn't make any sense to me how quickly he died.
Because I can't understand how I know people who have been poking
up for years and they're not even close to dying. He just happened
to be into it for a couple of months, then he died,”
CORDY said.
“I wish that I would have said something like stop dealing this
stuff, but I can't keep asking myself why because it will kill
me.&rdquo
Friends and family did try to warn Gavin, but the drugs had taken
hold of him.
In the tunnel vision of an addict, Gavin thought things were
looking up, said Nick
McNABB, a 23-year-old friend since high
school who considered Gavin like a brother.
Gavin was “on a perfect winning streak, man. He had 300 bucks
in his pocket, a certain amount of chawch or whatever you want
to call it (cocaine) in his backpack. He was looking up hardcore,
man.&rdquo
They would toke up together but to
McNABB,
Gavin's use of the
needles was a devastating turn.
McNABB, who grew up on a Desboro farm after being adopted, grew
furious with his friend's needle use.
Three days before
SIEGRIST overdosed,
McNABB knocked him to the
ground and demanded to know what he was thinking.
“You want me to lose sleep over you because you're going to die
any time now”?
McNABB demanded. “It's like, ‘Okay Nick, I won't
do it again, blah blah blah.' The next day I seen him and the
next day after that he died.&rdquo
That same day, Gavin's mom warned her son about his Friends:
“You think those people are going to help you? You're going to
die at their feet,” she recalled telling her son. “They're not
going to recognize that your life is fading away on you. They're
just not smart enough.&rdquo
Gavin just shrugged his shoulders.
Jenniffer SIEGRIST last saw her son alive about 11 a.m. on September
29 when they met by chance while she was on her way to an appointment.
He was high on ecstasy and said he would wait for her but he left.
Brad SIEGRIST,
Gavin's older brother, regrets his last, ugly
exchange with his brother. Gavin had stolen from him before,
to buy drugs it now appears. He asked Brad for money “and he
told me that people were going to kill him if he didn't get this
money. I told him I don't care whether you live or die.&rdquo
Mike COX knows of rumours blaming him for injecting cocaine into
Gavin but insists they're not true. He thinks police suspect
he took Gavin's drugs. He says he didn't.
COX said police didn't seem eager to look for drugs that night.
They didn't notice a “bag of weed” which
COX says he didn't try
to hide.
Family members may never resolve their helpless feelings. Quicker
action might have saved Gavin when he faced death inside that
westside home.
Gavin's aunt, Jenny
WELLS, understands a woman was feeding
SIEGRIST
drugs because he didn't have any money.
She's heard there was an older woman in Owen Sound who has been
in jail for selling pills who sold drugs to kids and encouraged
SIEGRIST to try injecting drugs, promising him a spectacular high.
WELLS, who didn't see her nephew often because she lives out
of town, thinks his hard drug use only started about seven months
ago -- after he had nose surgery.
She suspects Gavin got hooked on the drugs he was prescribed
then. She knew he'd been using marijuana since he was maybe 16.
WELLS railed at the memorial service a month after
SIEGRIST died
against what she believes is the abuse of prescription medicine.
Prescriptions are being given out freely and sold on the streets,
she lamented at the service.
“Gavin was given a prescription for Tylenol 3s after nose surgery,
then for morphine although he was out and about, walking around.
My mother was on morphine on her deathbed from cancer. Was it
really necessary? Who can we blame here? Was this Gavin's gateway
to his fatal needle use?&rdquo
She hopes her nephew's life -- and death -- might at least send
a message that saves the lives of his Friends and others, that
it can “wake up society to see there is a very big problem.&rdquo
Mike COX said nothing will be learned from Gavin
SIEGRIST's story.
“Really, who's going to listen? All these... kids, all these
idiots that are downtown doing drugs 24/7, smoking cigarettes.
They're not going to listen. They're just going to die. That's
pretty bad, I know.&rdquo